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Junonuno – Feeling Good
Nobody asked Bristol to save the dancefloor. And yet here we are. Junonuno — the intergalactic pop project of Nuno and DJ Juno — have arrived with "Feeling Good," a track that does precisely what it promises and refuses, loudly, to apologise for it. Pop music about joy is the oldest game going, but pulling it off without condescension or cliché remains as difficult as ever. The fact that this duo manage it with such effortless swagger says rather a lot about the quality of what they've cooked up.

The song is a clean, phosphorescent shot of 90s house — the sort of music that once made entire generations lose their shoes at the Haçienda and never quite find them again. Producer DJ Juno has clearly spent serious time at the altar of Daft Punk and Armand Van Helden, absorbing not just the aesthetic but the actual grammar of how those records moved: that particular way a four-on-the-floor kick drum stops being a sound and becomes a physiological instruction. The influence of Caribou, too, is traceable in the warmth that softens the edges, preventing the whole thing from becoming clinical. Mastered by AJ Patil, the final mix is bracingly tight — every element placed with the confidence of people who know exactly which frequency makes strangers reach for a stranger.


Nuno's vocal is the masterstroke. She occupies a curious register between euphoria and detachment, as though she's been having the time of her life for three days and is only now informing you of this fact. The pop lyricism is catchy without being toothless, and the hook — when it lands — has the pleasant characteristic of burrowing into your skull and redecorating. Nuno herself described the song as "pumped full of sugar and smelling salts. To be enjoyed in excess and without moderation." For once, the artist's own pitch is not an exaggeration.


The sold-out headline show at MAP Cafe in Kentish Town to mark the release was, by all accounts, the sort of evening that justifies the existence of grassroots venues. On stage the duo expand to a four-piece, with Uno on bass and Twono on drums, and those who witnessed it describe an atmosphere that transcends the merely musical. This matters, because the best dance music has always been live music in disguise — architecture for the body, not just the ears.


The music video, filmed in the virtual production space at UWE Bristol's Bridge Studios, is a statement of intent all on its own. Nuno performs a self-choreographed routine against an animation by Aidan Harris — vivid, lurid, and possessed of that particular strain of low-budget ambition that punk once ran on. It's the kind of video that makes you think about how little money and how much vision can achieve when pointed in the same direction. Green screen has rarely looked this deliberately, cheerfully strange.


Junonuno have made a record that functions like a gateway drug — bright, irresistible, and almost certainly the least of what they're capable of. Watch this space. Or, better, watch the floor.